July 14, 2010

Today I exceptionally break with the routine of the traditional “one-post-every-three-days” pace. There are two reasons for this: first, it’s the French national holiday today; second, it’s time to honour France’s superb performance in the recent FIFA’s World Cup. Er… as for the second point, I mean the team’s highly humorous act rather than its great display on a field…

“Fine” would you tell me, but what’s this “cocorico” about? A look at the Harrap’s Shorter French-English dictionary will provide this answer:

All this obsession about roosters is obviously due to the fact that it is France’s national emblem.

Almost a quarter of a century ago, “Cocorico” was indeed the name aptly chosen by Citroën to release a special edition of its 2CV, purposely celebrating the French team that had just clinched the third spot during the Mexican “Mundial”. As it happened so often during World Cups, France had beaten Brazil in quarter finals – okay, I’m just teasing our Brazilian readers here ;) – before losing to Germany in semi-finals. The year was 1986 and we all knew then that it was almost the end of the road for the great team of Platini, Tigana or Battiston, among others, so there was really something to celebrate. Nowadays, a special-edition wheelbarrow should be well enough for our “heroes”.

I mentioned a car, so you guess this is the true raison d’être for this post. The Citroën 2CV Cocorico was based on the standard Special, its only difference being its blue-white-red side decoration. Production was limited to one thousand copies, and the car went on sale in October 1986. More will come when I write a “2CV” post.